Fahrenheit

[jack]

For some reason, I never persuaded my brain to remember what temperatures in Fahrenheit meant, at all. I vaguely remembered 32 was freezing and 98 was body temperature, but never really absorbed how to extrapolate between them. Then I saw people quoting celsius reminders on siderea's post.

I especially liked "Cheat sheet: 0C=hat and mittens, 5C=coat, 10C=jacket, 15C=light sweater, 20C=short sleeves, 25C=sun hat, 30C=stillsuit"

And "30 is HOT, 20 is NICE; 10 is COLD, 0 is ICE".

So I decided to ask, what temperatures in F I should remember, and that 0, 10, 20 were probably the most useful. So 30 = freezing, 50 = cold, 70 = starting to get warm. And even if that's off by a couple of degrees, that lets me remember what's what in the comfortable range.

Comments

[ptc24]

Farenheit fans like to say that it has handy "decades" - you know what a temperature in the 50s is. Maybe it just takes practise. Perhaps what you need is a thermometer, and every now and again, when you notice the weather and have a spare moment, guess the temperature (in F) and see if you were right.

The cheat sheet translates to:

32F - mittens
41F - coat
50F - jacket
59F - sweater
68F - short sleeves
77F - sun hat
86F - stillsuit

which suggests:

20s and below: special measures
30s: cold cold cold
40s: cold
50s: a bit chilly
60s: mild
70s: nice'n'warm
80s: hot
90s: special measures

Except that if we're talking about comfort, then maybe the best thing isn't temperature, but dew point, which neatly combines temperature and humidity into a nice figure. I mean, I don't think that people who have been to Singapore would really appreciate a stillsuit in the weather they have out there. Now stillsuit weather may be hot, but with a very low dew point...

[redbird]

Yes: I was in Juarez, Mexico briefly, saw a bank thermometer claiming 35°, and my first thought was "right, bank thermometers lie" and my second was "you're in the desert, of course it doesn't feel like 35 would in New York" and I ducked into the nearest shop and bought a cold drink. (It might have been 30 instead of 35, but it felt like 25.)

[I'm telling this in C because the thermometer was in C, and for everyone's convenience in not having to translate.]